Phil Valentine

Philip Carr "Phil" Valentine (born September 9, 1959)^[1] is an American conservative talk radio show host in Nashville, Tennessee. He broadcasts daily on flagship station WWTN, a Cumulus Media station, from 3:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. Central Time^[2] and is syndicated through Westwood One on over 110 radio stations.^[3] He is probably best known in Tennessee for leading protests against a state income tax.^[4]

Personal life

Valentine is the son of former six-term Democratic U.S. Representative Tim Valentine of North Carolina, but is nonetheless a self-described conservative. His mother is the late Betsy Valentine who was killed in an auto accident one month shy of Valentine's 22nd birthday. He grew up in Nashville, North Carolina^[1] and graduated from Northern Nash High School. After attending East Carolina University, he decided on a career in radio. ECU did not offer a broadcast major so Valentine left the university and enrolled in Carolina School of Broadcasting in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Books

Valentine is the author of three books, The Conservative's Handbook, Right from the Heart: The ABC's of Reality in America,^[5] and Tax Revolt. Mr. Valentine was very active as a community organizer for the people of Tennessee to stop the passage of a state income tax against their wishes as citizens of that state. The Conservative's Handbook is a revision of Right from the Heart with new chapters and updated information. The foreword for both books was written by Sean Hannity.^[6]

Film and television

In August 2009 Valentine launched production of his documentary, An Inconsistent Truth, a rebuttal to Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The movie held its world premiere on January 26, 2012, and officially opened on January 27, 2012. For the first two weeks after the film's release, Truth was the top-grossing movie per screen in the country. At the time, it was playing at a single movie theater and earned a total of $36,439 for those two weeks.^[7] It picked up second place at the Appalachian Film Festival in Huntington, West Virginia, in February 2012. The movie also won the Excellence in Filmmaking award at the Anthem Film Festival^[8] and won Best Documentary at the Nevada Film Festival in Las Vegas.^[9]

In 2015, Valentine landed a role opposite Kevin Sorbo (Hercules, God's Not Dead) in the movie The Secret Handshake.^[10] Valentine's other movie credits include a supporting role in the 1998 movie A Letter From Death Row, written and co-directed by Bret Michaels of the rock group Poison. He had a cameo role in Atlas Shrugged: Who is John Galt? (2014).^[11] He was also the voice of a radio talk show host in a 2003 episode of ABC-TV's Threat Matrix television drama. Valentine has made numerous appearances on Fox News Channel and MSNBC.^[12]

Awards and honors

In 2015, Valentine won first place in the Colorado Film Festival^[13] and was named finalist in 10 other film festivals including The Beverly Hills Film Festival,^[14] The American Movie Awards,^[15] and The Atlanta Film Festival for his screenplay "Derek Dickens & The Dream."

Valentine has received numerous AIR Awards (Achievement in Radio) in Philadelphia and Nashville and the Gold World Medal for Best Talk Show Host from the New York Festivals International Radio Awards.^[16]

Valentine is consistently listed in the Talkers Magazine "Heavy Hundred" as one of the 100 most influential talk show hosts in America and is listed by Talkers as one of the 100 most influential talk show hosts of all time. For 2015, he is ranked #32 on the Heavy Hundred list.^[17]

References

Notes

Further reading

• "Phil Valentine Finds the Philadelphians Unexpectedly Delightful". Philadelphia Inquirer. October 4, 1996. Retrieved May 23, 2012.  (subscription required)
• "Talk radio's Valentine offers 'rehab' for liberals". The Tennessean. 2003-10-02. Retrieved 2012-05-23.  (subscription required)

External links

• Phil Valentine's official website
• Phil Valentine at the Internet Movie Database
• Appearances on C-SPAN